


A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

by writing_as_tracey



Series: Carmen Sandiego - What If...? [1]
Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 13:50:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20967602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_as_tracey/pseuds/writing_as_tracey
Summary: [season 2 spoilers]What if…Dexter Wolfe survived (and raised Carmen)?





	A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be a one-shot chapter to a series of "What If" scenarios I have thought of. This will likely develop into a much larger WIP, but at the moment I am so swamped with my _Harry Potter_ stories that this might take a backseat for a while until I have more time to dedicate to it.
> 
> It will be an eventual Red Crackle story, just an FYI. But we're also going to see some very interesting changes to canon and not-so-altered bits where all our favourite characters make an appearance (especially as Chase Devineaux holds a place in my heart).

A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

* * *

Dexter senses the woman before hearing her heels on the gravel of the drive. 

His heart is pounding furiously in his chest, and he isn’t sure if its adrenaline, the pleasure of outwitting his foes - V.I.L.E. and Interpol alike - or it’s fear, heart-wrenching fear that he’ll leave his sweet little girl alone. 

Instead, he takes a deep breath and lets it out silently, pausing in his steps near his fast sports car. He has his back to her - the woman who detached herself from the rest of the Interpol agents eager to catch the infamous Wolf - but he makes no move to speak. So she does first.

“Stop! Don’t move!” her voice is low and harsh, and he can hear the rustle as her blue Interpol windbreaker shifts against her and she raises her arms; the cock of the safety off on her gun.

In another life, Dexter Wolfe would turn, hand in his pocket, clenched around his car keys. His plan in this other life was to distract Interpol from his residence and daughter and take them on a wild goose chase around the Argentinian countryside before ditching the car and using his gadgetry to escape and make his way back to his house and his  _ conejita _ .

In another life, Tamara Frasier would misread the situation and fire on the thief, killing him instantly. Her fellow agents would rush to her side and in that life, Suhara “Shadowsan” would take Wolfe’s daughter back to V.I.L.E. with him, out of respect for his old teacher.

This is not that life. 

* * *

_ (Instead, it happens something like this) _

Dexter unclenches his hands from the keys in his jeans pocket, slowly removing them and holding them up for Fraiser to see, his back still to her. He lets the car keys drop to the gravel drive in a soft  _ clatter _ .

She demands he  _ get to your knees _ and to  _ keep your hands up _ \-- and he slowly goes to do so.

Once she comes close, though, Dexter springs into action.

He swivels on his knees, the gravel digging in painfully but he ignores it and strikes out with his leg, sweeping the young Interpol agent off her feet and hard to the ground. He is on top of her quickly, using his weight to subdue her, and he covers her mouth smothering her cry of pain. 

He was one of the best at V.I.L.E.. He is  _ still _ one of the best at V.I.L.E., and his fingers press hard at a pressure point against the woman’s neck. She gasps under his hand, her brown eyes wide and filled with panic as they meet his cool grey. She tries to flail, but Dexter keeps his body framing hers and keeps her from moving.

Then Tamara Fraiser falls unconscious, her fellow Interpol agents completely unaware of the two around the corner of the main house.

Dexter moves the unconscious agent off to the side, near the bushes that line the overhand of the garage car dock and rids her of her gun and earpiece, slipping it on with a sharp crackle and burst of static before he is sharing Interpol’s intelligence. The gun is tucked into the waistband at the back of his jeans and under his jacket. 

The Interpol agents haven’t gone into the house yet, but they will soon, Dexter knows this. They are waiting for the go-ahead from their superiors and he’s running out of time.

He abandons the flashy red car, returns to the house by slipping up a servant’s staircase until he is upstairs. There is a strange smell in the air, acrid and sharp and within moments he knows his house is on fire. But how? Who?

The answer is revealed as a young Asian man, dressed all in black, steps out from the shadows; one hand tightly grips the hilt of his katana. 

The other holds his  _ conejita _ to his chest in an awkward, unpracticed way, and Dexter’s heart stops for a single, long moment. The world goes grey, draining of colour and purpose except for the fact that his little girl is in a trained assassin’s hands and she’s crying, struggling against the strange smell of smoke and the unfamiliar man as tears fill her grey eyes.  _ His eyes _ .

“Suhara,” says Dexter, his muscles tensing. His grey eyes flick toward his daughter, looking her over for injury. A small part of him relaxes when he sees she is unharmed.

“Master Wolf,” the younger man replies, something confused and torn in his lightly accented voice. 

“Will you kill me now?” asks Dexter, calmly. He knows how this game works, and if Suhara is here, then the Faculty at V.I.L.E. have made their mind up and he is a loose end they cannot have. No one retires from V.I.L.E..

“I was,” admits Suhara, something different in his voice as he looks around the room. Smoke is beginning to fill, hovering above them and it is getting harder to breathe but Dexter will stay there forever if it means keeping his daughter in his sight. Several of his partially-packed boxes -- filled with his trophies from various heists around the world -- were on fire and cloth, plastic is beginning to burn.

“Was?”

“I am… not sure… if killing you is the best idea now.” 

Suhara’s grip shifts a bit and he looks down at the red-headed toddler in his arms, and Dexter all but snarls, his face taking on the fierce visage of his namesake. 

The younger man visibly starts at the rapid shift of placid to angry.

“Then go back to the Faculty and the Academy and leave me and mine alone,” the master thief demands, eyes narrowed and thin frame tense as he shifts lightly on his feet, ready to make a lunge for his older - and best - student.

There is a standoff between the two men, a long one as the fire begins to burn anything it touches around them, licking up wooden bookshelves and inching its way across the wooden beams of the palatial villa. Behind Suhara, Dexter can see the Matryoshka dolls his wife pilfered from an old, forgotten Nikolaevich palace in Russia. She liked the country; liked the morbid tale of the Russian royal family and even had a soft spot for the silly animated film. 

Then, finally, Suhara’s form sags just the tiniest. He tentatively holds out the wiggling baby, and Dexter leans forward and snatches the girl up like the wolf he is, cradling her against his shirt and jacket, pressing a hand against her red curls. 

“_Shh, shh_, _mi_ _Mija_,” the older man whispers as he leans down, dipping his chin to gently rub against the top of her head. Despite the reassuring words he says to the toddler, his grey eyes are cold and hard -- flinty, almost -- on Suhara.

“You died in the fire,” the Asian man declares, his voice heard against the crackle of flames and the creaks of the wood as it splintered and warped in the heat. “There was no time to recover the body, as Interpol agents took over the scene quickly.”

It is hard to breathe, with the smoke, but something in Dexter’s chest eases at the man’s words. He was always his best student, his favourite student… “Thank you, Suhara.”

The other man nods once, a solemn look on his face. He turns, ready to make his escape, but pauses at the edge of the balustrade, ready to leap off.

Dexter, standing near a ring of fire, bouncing his little girl in his arms as she tears up, looks at him. “Suhara…?”

“Be safe, Master Wolf.”

A small, sincere smile graces the older man’s olive complexion, and then Suhara flies off into the smoke, disappearing completely.

“Come,  _ conejita _ , it’s time for us to disappear, too,” he murmurs and pulls a portion of his jacket up and over his daughter, shielding her from the flames and he runs through the house, stopping only long enough to grab the nesting dolls Vera loved and shoving it along with baby wipes, extra clothing, and a teething ring, into a to-go bag.

He abandons the plan of using his car, and instead, using the same side servant staircase, keeps to the shadows as he runs across the villa’s lawn until he reaches the edge of the property and the tall wall. 

One hand secures his daughter, and the other uses a grappling hook and they are soon flying up and over, and with athleticism that denotes his career, Dexter launches them over the wall and is far away from the villa before Interpol realizes no one was home.

A kind farmer walking alongside his cart-pulling donkey picks him up at daybreak, letting the exhausted man sleep against the hay in the cart, daughter securely pressed against his chest as she snuffles against his throat.

Before he drifts off, Dexter gently slides his hand down her curls, and murmurs, “It’s just you and me now,  _ conejita _ . Your  _ Papi _ won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”

Then he follows her into oblivious, a new future for Dexter Wolfe and his daughter just beginning.

* * *

**[FIN- for now]**


End file.
